Nives Zorzut

Nives went to school in Essendon, Melbourne but spent much time on Phillip Island where her family had a holiday house. Art had always been with her as a child, spending hours locked behind a bedroom door drawing and colouring in pencil. As she got older, she made functional art in the form of fashion and industrial lights. At the age of 40 she began to feel a need to produce actual art, art with no function, art for arts sake. This coincided with her father’s passing. She inherited some of his many tools, one of them being an arc welder. Nives took this welder to a friend to show her how it worked. They found some old steel pipe lying around his yard, she had the idea to bend the pipe, which we did, then they cut it into pieces. He fired up the welder and proceeded to stick metal to metal instantly, Nives was truly amazed at the process and remembers thinking that anything was now possible.

Nives art practice is very experimental, focusing on the medium of steel pipe. She creates work with what she calls metal brushstrokes; they are short lengths of steel pipe that have been bent and cut at random angles. She uses a selection of these to create line, and because of the random angles it is almost impossible to dictate the course of the line she is making. She allows her subconscious thoughts to instill feeling and emotion relevant to the subject of the work. She believes this intent, is held in the implied water that travels in the steel pipe.